Sermon On Marriage Is Honourable

Marriage Is Honourable: God's Design For Covenant Love

There is a word in the book of Hebrews that has echoed through Christian worship for centuries. The writer declares simply and beautifully that marriage is to be held in honor among all. That single affirmation invites us to stop, look carefully at what God has said about marriage, and ask why it deserves such honor. The answer, as we will discover this morning, is not found in sentiment or cultural tradition. It is found in the creative purpose of God himself, displayed first in a garden and then explained more fully through the apostle Paul's letter to the church at Ephesus. Open your Bible with me to Genesis chapter two and Ephesians chapter five, and let us hear what God says about the covenant he designed.

The Foundation: God Said It Is Not Good To Be Alone

Genesis 2:18 records the first thing in all of creation that God declared was not good. He had spoken light into being, separated the waters, filled the earth with life, and called it all good. Then he looked at the man he had formed and said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him." That word "helper" in the Hebrew carries no hint of inferiority. The same word is used in the Psalms to describe God himself as the helper of his people. To be a helper in the biblical sense is to bring strength, competence, and presence to a situation that is incomplete without you.

God then brought the animals before the man, not to be cruel, but to make a point. Verse 20 tells us that among all the creatures, no helper corresponding to him was found. The man could name every living thing, but he could not find in any of them a companion of equal dignity, equal nature, and equal standing before God. So God caused a deep sleep to fall on the man, took from his side, and built the woman. When the man awoke and saw her, his response was the first recorded human poetry: "This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." There is wonder in those words. There is recognition. There is joy.

Verse 24 draws the theological conclusion that Jesus himself would later quote: "This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh." Three movements are embedded in that sentence. There is leaving, a public and decisive step away from one household. There is bonding, a word that carries the idea of clinging, of covenant commitment that does not let go. And there is becoming one flesh, a union that is physical, emotional, spiritual, and social all at once. Marriage, from its very first appearance in Scripture, is not a human invention or a cultural convenience. It is a creation ordinance, something God designed before sin entered the world, before there were laws or ceremonies or traditions. It is woven into the fabric of what it means to be human.

The Shape: Mutual Submission And Sacrificial Love

Now turn to Ephesians chapter five, where Paul takes this creation foundation and shows us what it looks like when the gospel reshapes two lives living it out together. Before Paul ever addresses husbands and wives specifically, he lays a governing principle in verse 21: "submitting to one another in the fear of Christ." This is the atmosphere in which the entire passage breathes. The Christian household is not a competition. It is a community of people who have been humbled by the grace of God and who now extend that humility toward one another.

Paul then addresses wives in verses 22 through 24, calling them to submit to their husbands as to the Lord. This is not a call to silence, passivity, or the erasure of a woman's gifts and voice. It is a call to a particular posture within the covenant, one that mirrors the church's trust in Christ. And immediately Paul turns to the husbands, and the weight of what he says is staggering. Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. That is not a small thing. That is the cross. Paul is not calling husbands to manage their wives or to demand service from them. He is calling husbands to the most demanding form of love in the universe, the kind that lays down its own preferences, its own comfort, and its own life for the good of another.

Verse 28 brings it even closer to home. Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Paul is saying that the two who have become one flesh must treat each other with the same care they would naturally give to themselves. You do not neglect your own body. You do not wound it or ignore its needs. In the same way, a spouse is not a stranger to be managed but a part of yourself to be cherished.

Verse 32 reveals the deepest reason for all of this. Paul calls marriage a profound mystery, and then he says it refers to Christ and the church. Marriage is not just a practical arrangement for companionship and family. It is a living parable. Every faithful marriage is meant to display something of the relationship between Jesus and his people, the love that pursues, the covenant that holds, the grace that forgives, the faithfulness that does not walk away. When a husband and wife love each other well, the watching world catches a glimpse of the gospel.

The Grace: What Holds It Together

Now let us be honest, because the Bible is honest. The design is glorious, but the people inside the design are broken. Every person in this room who is married knows that the covenant you made was entered into by two imperfect human beings. There are days when leaving feels easier than bonding. There are seasons when oneness feels distant. There are moments when sacrificial love is the last thing you feel capable of offering.

This is precisely why the gospel must be at the center of a Christian marriage. Paul does not say that husbands and wives must manufacture the love of Christ out of their own emotional reserves. He assumes throughout Ephesians that these are people who have been saved by grace, filled with the Spirit, and transformed by the renewing of their minds. The love that holds a marriage together is not primarily a feeling. It is a decision rooted in the same grace that saved you. You forgive because you have been forgiven. You serve because you have been served. You remain faithful because the One who called you into covenant with himself has never broken faith with you.

If you are here today and you are not yet a follower of Jesus Christ, I want you to hear this clearly. The most important covenant you could ever enter is not a marriage covenant. It is a covenant with God through faith in his Son. Jesus Christ came into this world, lived the life we could not live, died the death we deserved, and rose from the grave so that every person who trusts in him would be forgiven, reconciled to God, and given a new heart capable of the kind of love we have been talking about this morning. If you have never placed your faith in him, today is the day to do that. No marriage, no matter how beautiful, can fill the place in your soul that only God was designed to occupy.

And for those of you who are married, hear this as an encouragement and not a burden. The same grace that saved you is sufficient for your marriage. When you have failed your spouse, there is forgiveness available. When your marriage has grown cold, there is renewal available. When the weight of covenant feels heavy, there is a Savior who carries burdens and gives rest. Marriage is honourable not because it is easy, but because it is designed by God, sustained by grace, and meant to point the world toward the love of Christ.

So hold it in honor. Cherish the covenant. Serve one another with the same selfless love that Christ showed the church. And let your marriage be a living testimony that the gospel is true and that God's design is good.

Sources Consulted

Gordon J. Wenham. Word Biblical Commentary: Genesis 1-15. Word Books, 1987.

Clinton E. Arnold. Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Ephesians. Zondervan, 2010.

Andreas J. Kostenberger with David W. Jones. God, Marriage, and Family: Rebuilding the Biblical Foundation. Crossway, 2010.

Thomas R. Schreiner. Commentary on Hebrews. B&H Academic, 2015.

John H. Walton. The NIV Application Commentary: Genesis. Zondervan, 2001.